they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

Wow, that is so disingenuous on his part. He's blaming demand for his supply problem.

If you can't ship as many Macs this year as you did last year, if you're supply-constrained at 75% of the level of year-prior sales, then the problem is yours, not the fact that people are beating on your doors unusually hard.

I ordered a customised 27" from the UK store on the 8th of Jan and it's predicted to be delivered sometime after 5th Feb. Grrr! Not bothered about the lack of optical on my rMBP, so I doubt the iMac will trouble me much either. Location of the SD slot looks a bit awkward, but I'll cope.

I agree with @bloodnok the machine has the wrong spec and is too expensive. My 2008 iMac wasn't powerful enough for my needs but the screen was still great. I made the leap to the top spec mini and a thunderbolt display and am very happy: accessible SD card slot, an actually present firewire socket, good enough performance (more would always be better!) and more discreet looks - no big aluminium panel underneath is an aesthetic bonus for me. And best of all, next time I have to upgrade I won't have to pay loads for a new screen I don't need, I can just upgrade the processor. Apple may as well skip this generation of iMac and do it again properly.

Wow, that is so disingenuous on his part. He's blaming demand for his supply problem.

If you can't ship as many Macs this year as you did last year, if you're supply-constrained at 75% of the level of year-prior sales, then the problem is yours, not the fact that people are beating on your doors unusually hard.

Tim Cook is a spin master. Read his remarks on the closure of Ping for serious laughs.

Regarding the iMac ... I'm an apple guy but the new iMac doesn't make much sense to me. It may sell like hotcakes but I see it being in an arstechnica "tech mistakes" in 2023.

I think it reflects badly on parts of the Apple philosophy.They made the new iMac with a different production process, and made it super thin and light.

But it doesn't NEED to be done like that, and they did it partly for the "wow" factor, which isn't entirely necessary in the iMac. It looks the same from the front.

They caused the supply constraints by designing a product that can't be easily produced, which is not a good plan for a business if they are trying to sell products. There's nothing wrong with trying to push things, but there are limits to how far they can be pushed, and Apple seem to have exceeded those limits.Going for something thinner and lighter than the old iMac, but not as thin and light as the new one would allow further progress in the future, greater ability to manufacture the product, and higher sales.

It was unnecessarily over-engineered, and now they are paying for that,

Not sure I believe him. Our local computer store has been trying to get imacs in since they were released and has not seen one, and the Apple rep said (this was the beginning of December) that they couldn't promise customers product before christmas. They still don't have any. This feels like a supply side issure with the manufacturing more than a demand. Demand is much higher in our area for macbooks than imacs.

they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

Optical disk? Get with the program gramps! It's a flash and cloud based world now. "Physical media" that you "own" is so 2000. </sarcasm>

I think it is time for Tim Cook to hire a full time COO so that he can concentrate on being CEO. Three quarters in a row they have run into supply issues (this quarter it was the iPad mini, iPhone 5, and iMac). Did they leave 2 million iPhone, 1 million iPad, and 0.5 million iMac sales on the table last quarter? We'll never know, but maybe.

Not sure I believe him. Our local computer store has been trying to get imacs in since they were released and has not seen one, and the Apple rep said (this was the beginning of December) that they couldn't promise customers product before christmas. They still don't have any. This feels like a supply side issure with the manufacturing more than a demand. Demand is much higher in our area for macbooks than imacs.

You should reread, because he said there was a supply problem. What part is there to disbelieve? You are living proof that there is demand:

Quote:

Throughout Wednesday's call, Cook mentioned Apple's iMac supply problems during the December quarter. "We left the quarter with significant constraints on the iMac," he said. For the current quarter ending in March, he added, "We'll significantly increase supply, but demand is very strong and we're not certain we'll achieve a balance this quarter."

I think it reflects badly on parts of the Apple philosophy.They made the new iMac with a different production process, and made it super thin and light.

But it doesn't NEED to be done like that, and they did it partly for the "wow" factor, which isn't entirely necessary in the iMac. It looks the same from the front.

Yes it does. Imagine the outrage if they tried the new manufacturing technique on an iPad or MacBook Pro? This way it's a low volume product where they can perfect the process before moving it to a high volume process.

Quote:

They caused the supply constraints by designing a product that can't be easily produced, which is not a good plan for a business if they are trying to sell products. There's nothing wrong with trying to push things, but there are limits to how far they can be pushed, and Apple seem to have exceeded those limits.Going for something thinner and lighter than the old iMac, but not as thin and light as the new one would allow further progress in the future, greater ability to manufacture the product, and higher sales.

But it wouldn't give you the ability to make thinner, lighter, strong MacBooks, such as a 17" model. Apple continues to stuff more battery per inch than most of the market, and doing so at the 17" size might not be possible without stir friction welding.

Quote:

It was unnecessarily over-engineered, and now they are paying for that,

I ordered a 27-inch imac on 11/27. I was told delivery would be in two-to-four weeks. Four weeks later, I was told three-to-five days. Two weeks later, I was still waiting. It finally arrived on Friday. By Saturday morning, Apple determined that the new fusion drive was bad and needed replacing. They sent a new drive to my local Apple Store. Then they determined that 1) techs don't know how to replace the new drives and 2) they sent the wrong drive anyway to the store.

They told me they were getting a lot of bad machines and then asked if I would work with them to see what the problems were. I said I was glad to help. After fussing around a bit, they just said that "Yes, you have a bad drive." Now, they wanted me to return it. I asked them when I would get another, and they said 1) they wouldn't put the order in until they received mine (which infuriated me, because I was being punished for a bad machine) and 2) they had no idea when they would get another in. "There's a long waiting list."

Sometimes they come in in ten days, sometimes longer. I asked whether since I received a damaged Mac and spent easily four hours on the phone with them, couldn't someone make a phone call to special order one at this point?

"No."

Now I am waiting, for both a machine and any information about when I might get a new one. So far, neither is forthcoming.

So here I am, trying to work off of a Macbook air, thinking if I wanted to be treated this bad, I would have just ordered a Samsung.

Not sure I believe him. Our local computer store has been trying to get imacs in since they were released and has not seen one, and the Apple rep said (this was the beginning of December) that they couldn't promise customers product before christmas. They still don't have any. This feels like a supply side issure with the manufacturing more than a demand. Demand is much higher in our area for macbooks than imacs.

You should reread, because he said there was a supply problem. What part is there to disbelieve? You are living proof that there is demand:

Quote:

Throughout Wednesday's call, Cook mentioned Apple's iMac supply problems during the December quarter. "We left the quarter with significant constraints on the iMac," he said. For the current quarter ending in March, he added, "We'll significantly increase supply, but demand is very strong and we're not certain we'll achieve a balance this quarter."

He said there was a supply problem because demand was so high. I am not believing that is what is causing the supply shortage. I'm thinking they are having trouble getting some part, so they have not been able to make the numbers they had predicted they would need. He's making it sound like they had no idea so many people would want these computers so they didn't make enough. They have plenty of data on imac sales. Even if they underestimated, I cannot believe they did so by this great amount.

I think it is time for Tim Cook to hire a full time COO so that he can concentrate on being CEO. Three quarters in a row they have run into supply issues (this quarter it was the iPad mini, iPhone 5, and iMac). Did they leave 2 million iPhone, 1 million iPad, and 0.5 million iMac sales on the table last quarter? We'll never know, but maybe.

I don't see this as Cook's fault, more Apple's decision to test the limits. Apple chooses to push manufacturing capabilities and thus feels the pinch as manufacturers start with a slow process, which they work over time to improve. By the time manufacturing tech can make parts quickly and reliably, the HPs, Samsungs, and Dells of the world are jumping on the bandwagon with their own devices.

they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

Optical is dead, get over it. If you still need one, the iMac has lots of external ports. Including a device and altering the design to handle the less than 5% of the market that continue to demand access to an obsolete format is not something apple will do. The 10 or 15 times a year you need to pull out a drive, pull it out of a drawer and use it. About the only class of people demanding a drive that use one more often are people who rip, which is currently ilelgal, not to mention Apple's strong dependence on music and movie publishers backing content in their store, so they're certainly never going to capitulate that's a reason to keep one.

I agree, the SD should have been in the edge, not back, but I'm looking forward to one on the wireless keyboard in the next edition. 90% of what I have on SD that needs to get into the PC transfers over USB anyway at this point (via the camera cable). Most everything else I used a USB stick or SD card for moving around went to the cloud. A small inconvience of placement is either just a minor hassle, or eliminated again by using a dongle's adapter off the keyboard or just a USB extension. I have my SD for my PC (I don't have an Apple computer), stuck with double sided tape to the underside of my desk, where noone can see the wires but it is also far easier to access than the one built in the case.

they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

Are you holding out for Apple to bring back the floppy drive as well?

Your comment on the SD card slot aside, optical drives are quickly becoming a think of the past. If you really want one that bad, lots of places sell external optical drives (including Apple.)

I agree with @bloodnok the machine has the wrong spec and is too expensive. My 2008 iMac wasn't powerful enough for my needs but the screen was still great. I made the leap to the top spec mini and a thunderbolt display and am very happy: accessible SD card slot, an actually present firewire socket, good enough performance (more would always be better!) and more discreet looks - no big aluminium panel underneath is an aesthetic bonus for me. And best of all, next time I have to upgrade I won't have to pay loads for a new screen I don't need, I can just upgrade the processor. Apple may as well skip this generation of iMac and do it again properly.

How is the SD card slot on the back of the mini more convenient than on the back of the iMac?

Once you do the math of buying a Cinema Display and the best spec Mac mini it will still be significantly slower in comparison to the iMac's performance, and especially so on the graphics side. The only advantage you have is in being able to reuse the display for a newer Mac. Also, the display on the new iMac is noticeably sharper, has better contrast and reduces glare by 75% even though the core of the display is supposedly the same. The difference is obvious seeing the new iMac and the current Cinema Display side by side. The choice is not as simple as you make it out to be. I'm going for the iMac for the best performance and the best quality.

I think it reflects badly on parts of the Apple philosophy.They made the new iMac with a different production process, and made it super thin and light.

But it doesn't NEED to be done like that, and they did it partly for the "wow" factor, which isn't entirely necessary in the iMac. It looks the same from the front.

They caused the supply constraints by designing a product that can't be easily produced, which is not a good plan for a business if they are trying to sell products. There's nothing wrong with trying to push things, but there are limits to how far they can be pushed, and Apple seem to have exceeded those limits.Going for something thinner and lighter than the old iMac, but not as thin and light as the new one would allow further progress in the future, greater ability to manufacture the product, and higher sales.

It was unnecessarily over-engineered, and now they are paying for that,

The new display is what has caused the supply issue, not the fact that the case of the new iMac is so thin.

Wow, that is so disingenuous on his part. He's blaming demand for his supply problem.

If you can't ship as many Macs this year as you did last year, if you're supply-constrained at 75% of the level of year-prior sales, then the problem is yours, not the fact that people are beating on your doors unusually hard.

This. It was a truly stupid idea to go to manufacturing with a pointlessly thin imac. Another of Tim Cook's missteps, albeit a small one. Edit: Per Flashlight's post it was the new display. For this then I forgive them as it is a significant step forward (see below).

That said, I do really like the new imac, especially the 27" with fusion drive and fused display. My biggest complaint about my 2011 27" imac is that the display reflects all the lights at work. I still love the machine more than any other that I've ever owned.

I think it is time for Tim Cook to hire a full time COO so that he can concentrate on being CEO. Three quarters in a row they have run into supply issues (this quarter it was the iPad mini, iPhone 5, and iMac). Did they leave 2 million iPhone, 1 million iPad, and 0.5 million iMac sales on the table last quarter? We'll never know, but maybe.

I don't see this as Cook's fault, more Apple's decision to test the limits. Apple chooses to push manufacturing capabilities and thus feels the pinch as manufacturers start with a slow process, which they work over time to improve. By the time manufacturing tech can make parts quickly and reliably, the HPs, Samsungs, and Dells of the world are jumping on the bandwagon with their own devices.

Part of it is the type/quality of manufacturing they're doing, and the types of compenents they're using, but a real part of it is that apple is growing SO damned fast in some arenas, there simply isn't enough factory STANDING to accomodate all those lines at the capacity apple is pulling them (meanwhile everyone ELSE is ALSO expanding in mobile and tablets as fast of faster vying for that same facory space). Apple needs from10m to 200m of each part to sell 10m macks and 200m phones, where their competition can pick and choose varied parts based on more general availablilty for models that might not see a 500K unit run.

That said, a $50B stock slide should loosen some of those shareholder purses and allow apple to start out-bidding or oevrpaying for capacity expansion. Remember, Cooke is in charge, but the board approves the budget, and $7.4B for factory expansion was all they got in 2011, I don;t know about 2012. I think 15-20B is more appropriate on their curent scale, and that would have helped avoid some of those crunches. Also note, some of this technology is not openly licensed by the manufacturer for others to make, some of it comes only from one and only one factory on earth, and that company may have strict limits on capacity expansion due to their own finances, local laws, or available land, let alone lead times.

Look, it;s not like there's just empy factory space sitting around waiting for apple to put one of their lines on. building that infrastructure takes time. Apple picked some particularly unique technologies (mostly in their screens), that are causing headaches since they're non-standard resolutions and recently patented designs. Also, there have been yield issues and factory delays complicating what they bought into. how many billion can they piss away to balance the load? That's very hard numbers to convince a board of trustees on.

There is also a shortage of Apple products that aren't glued together these days. Unless they fix this, nothing else even matters to me. Soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs are just as bad. It is a real shame, since they could otherwise have some very compelling hardware. If only they weren't so hell bent on Steve's obsession with thin, and making their products as unserviceable as possible.

I'm also curious what this is going to do to resale values. It is one thing when the hardware is on warranty, but I can't imagine many people would be willing to pay similar prices now that any sort of repair is very difficult, and likely prohibitively expensive.

Wow, that is so disingenuous on his part. He's blaming demand for his supply problem.

If you can't ship as many Macs this year as you did last year, if you're supply-constrained at 75% of the level of year-prior sales, then the problem is yours, not the fact that people are beating on your doors unusually hard.

This. It was a truly stupid idea to go to manufacturing with a pointlessly thin imac. Another of Tim Cook's missteps, albeit a small one. That said, I do really like the new imac, especially the 27" with fusion drive and fused display. My biggest complaint about my 2011 27" imac is that the display reflects all the lights at work. I still love the machine more than any other that I've ever owned.

So it;s Apple's fault that LG missed a deadline by nearly 3 months, and that eIPS panels have had lower than expected yield rates everywhere else? Look, the board gives apple a maximum amount to invest in outsourcing new lines each year, and they undershot that spending. It;s not like Cooke could just go to the board after LG already missed their dedline and come up with enough billions more to pay someone else, and even if thwey could, noone could have biolt out fast enough. These lines are staged 9 months out or more from initial production, and still take a few months of tweaking to hit full capacity after they come online. It takes tens (or hundreds) of millions in investment to build out a single production line, using custom engineering and machines that never existed before. Its complicated, and mistakes are made, especialyl when working on the bleeding edge.

The board just got taught a big lesson, losing a few billion by overbuilding capacity costs less than the $50B in stock plunge for missing wallstreet expectations. Though they'll likely be constrained at LEAST 2 more quarters while those investments (that almost certainly ALREADY happened back in Q4) start to have an actual impact on the lines operating now, but wallstreet will likely continue to overreact anyway. This hardship won;t be likely to repeat, but it will linger for some time yet.

There is also a shortage of Apple products that aren't glued together these days. Unless they fix this, nothing else even matters to me. Soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs are just as bad. It is a real shame, since they could otherwise have some very compelling hardware. If only they weren't so hell bent on Steve's obsession with thin, and making their products as unserviceable as possible.

I'm also curious what this is going to do to resale values. It is one thing when the hardware is on warranty, but I can't imagine many people would be willing to pay similar prices now that any sort of repair is very difficult, and likely prohibitively expensive.

Kono, get over it. This is inevitable. In 5 more years, I expect base RAM to be either part of the CPU itself, or the northbridge. in fact, I see the CPU becoming a SoC about that fast as well. I 10 years, the onlything on the board other than a single big chip will be an optional radio module (because of international differences in bands this is better to keep seperate), and a set of bus lines to external ports.

the SSDs are not prorietart, the're mSATA, which IS a standard format. This is just an evolution in form factor, and is also inevitable. Apple is soldering on RAM becausr they HAVE TO in ultrabooks to meet the demands of the form factor (and EVERYONE ELSE IS TOO!), but they still leave RAM slots in pro notebooks and the 27" iMac (the low end 21" with either 8 or 16GB out of the box, won;t likely ever NEED an upgrade. in fact, once we passed by 4GB, most people will never use it outside of some very select people who a) know they'll need it and b) are not builing bottom of the line anyway. In the old days, you bought what RAM you could afford and expected to over 5-6 years need more. today, the RAM needs of the OS have been stagnant for almost 5 years and are not expected to increase dramatically, and RAM is now one of the cheapest components in the machine, so just spend the extra $100 now and never upgrade, or figure 8GB will be enough (because for 95% of people it will be).

Some peoeple (lots of them) are demanding smaller, especially in notebooks, and sockets simply don;y work in those form factors, and it is NOT a form factor apple will ignore. That said, they CONTINUE to release other models that DO have the pugradibiltiy, and near identical if not LOWER prices, and they are far from alone in the industry on this issue.

In 10 years, the mainboard will be mostly ubiquitous, enough CPU and GPU and RAM to meet virtually every uncommon, let alone common need, so the options and cost will revolve around the screen, weight, battery, quality, and other aspects. At that point outside of servers and some niche engineering or pro systems, upgrades won;t be a concern on short-term levels, so very little will be upgradible at all. The reasons to upgrade in the past have been based either on cost constraints, or on lack of viable external options (TB ends that latetr issue forever). Also, when a good PC was $2K, skimping on RAM you don't need now was a good idea. When a mid-range ultrabook is only $1K with max ram, it's not so much of a concern.

Wow, that is so disingenuous on his part. He's blaming demand for his supply problem.

If you can't ship as many Macs this year as you did last year, if you're supply-constrained at 75% of the level of year-prior sales, then the problem is yours, not the fact that people are beating on your doors unusually hard.

the SSDs are not prorietart, the're mSATA, which IS a standard format. This is just an evolution in form factor, and is also inevitable. Apple is soldering on RAM becausr they HAVE TO in ultrabooks to meet the demands of the form factor (and EVERYONE ELSE IS TOO!), but they still leave RAM slots in pro notebooks and the 27" iMac (the low end 21" with either 8 or 16GB out of the box, won;t likely ever NEED an upgrade. in fact, once we passed by 4GB, most people will never use it outside of some very select people who a)

Clarification: The SSD's are annoyingly proprietary for the MBA and rMBP which is why OWC fleeces us for upgrades. The RAM is not upgradeable on these models as well.The old MBP's are upgradeable with 3rd party RAM and disk upgrades. There's a good balance in my opinion.

I agree with @bloodnok the machine has the wrong spec and is too expensive. My 2008 iMac wasn't powerful enough for my needs but the screen was still great. I made the leap to the top spec mini and a thunderbolt display and am very happy: accessible SD card slot, an actually present firewire socket, good enough performance (more would always be better!) and more discreet looks - no big aluminium panel underneath is an aesthetic bonus for me. And best of all, next time I have to upgrade I won't have to pay loads for a new screen I don't need, I can just upgrade the processor. Apple may as well skip this generation of iMac and do it again properly.

So according to you the iMac should be redesigned to be...a Mac mini.

It would seem doubly redundant to point out that there's already a Mac mini and that you bought one. But apparently it's not.

There's no obvious advantage to making a desktop machine as thin as the new iMac. Go play with one in person -- you can't see the thinness from the front. All Apple seems to have accomplished was leaving money on the table from demand it couldn't meet due to the trickier production.

There's no obvious advantage to making a desktop machine as thin as the new iMac. Go play with one in person -- you can't see the thinness from the front. All Apple seems to have accomplished was leaving money on the table from demand it couldn't meet due to the trickier production.

From what I hear the issues with production have little to do with the iMacs thinness and more to do with the display. The display supply constraints are not really Apple fault. The alternative would have been to not update the screen at all and then all you guys would complain about that instead.

they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

...

bloodnok wrote:

...need...

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

they need to fix that new imac before i'd consider replacing my old imac with it. they made a mistake making it so skinny. it's an all-in-one desktop machine. it needs to have its sd slot where it's accessible - well more accessible. it needs to have an optical disk built in. they need to try again .....

Optical is dead, get over it. If you still need one, the iMac has lots of external ports. Including a device and altering the design to handle the less than 5% of the market that continue to demand access to an obsolete format is not something apple will do. The 10 or 15 times a year you need to pull out a drive, pull it out of a drawer and use it. About the only class of people demanding a drive that use one more often are people who rip, which is currently ilelgal, not to mention Apple's strong dependence on music and movie publishers backing content in their store, so they're certainly never going to capitulate that's a reason to keep one.

So you are making up your own statistics of less than 5% of the market using an optical drive? Optical discs are NOT obsolete. If they were, you would not see thousands of CDs, DVDs, and BDs in stores. Those that believe the optical disc is dead are those that never purchased or owned a CD in their lifetime, and they stole all their music off the internet (Napster) because they think they had the right to do so. People still buy CDs and DVDs. Many people prefer to rip a CD at a higher quality than what Apple and Amazon provides. Ripping a DVD to make your own digital copy or backup is not illegal. Ripping your own CD is not illegal. Software is still shipped on DVD (Microsoft Office and Adobe CS). How about archiving your digital download software to CD or DVD so you don't have to waste disk space? How about burning your own custom CDs for your car, or making a copy of your limited edition out of print CD for your car? Why should anyone have to resort to an external drive taking up space on their desk when it should be built-in on a desktop computer?

You have not given a valid reason for removing an optical drive from a desktop computer. You have only given a "fanboi" reason by saying it is "cool" to have a computer without an optical drive. Most people don't care that the new iMac is 5mm thin at the edge. That is not a selling feature. This compromised the design of the computer by moving the SD card slot to the most inconvenient spot, the back. My 2011 iMac is just as thin, because I never look at the side of the computer. It could be 6 inches thick and I would never know it. If Apple wants to remove features, fine. Apple charging $100 MORE after removing features is not fine. Removing the optical drive, audio input, and FireWire, and then charging more than the previous model is bullshit. It should be $100 less than the previous model because of the features they removed.

I agree with @bloodnok the machine has the wrong spec and is too expensive. My 2008 iMac wasn't powerful enough for my needs but the screen was still great. I made the leap to the top spec mini and a thunderbolt display and am very happy: accessible SD card slot, an actually present firewire socket, good enough performance (more would always be better!) and more discreet looks - no big aluminium panel underneath is an aesthetic bonus for me. And best of all, next time I have to upgrade I won't have to pay loads for a new screen I don't need, I can just upgrade the processor. Apple may as well skip this generation of iMac and do it again properly.

How is the SD card slot on the back of the mini more convenient than on the back of the iMac?

Once you do the math of buying a Cinema Display and the best spec Mac mini it will still be significantly slower in comparison to the iMac's performance, and especially so on the graphics side. The only advantage you have is in being able to reuse the display for a newer Mac. Also, the display on the new iMac is noticeably sharper, has better contrast and reduces glare by 75% even though the core of the display is supposedly the same. The difference is obvious seeing the new iMac and the current Cinema Display side by side. The choice is not as simple as you make it out to be. I'm going for the iMac for the best performance and the best quality.

Fair enough - everyone makes different choices. For me glare isn't a problem in my workspace, and slightly moving a mini is easier than moving a big iMac further. I agree the performance of the Mini isn't as good as the iMac but when I think about the future as well it seemed like the right decision for me. I checked on a machine in an Apple store and it was adequate for my use, mainly photo editing. The graphics performance hit isn't that significant for me. And price was a factor too, both for this machine and my next one.

I agree with @bloodnok the machine has the wrong spec and is too expensive. My 2008 iMac wasn't powerful enough for my needs but the screen was still great. I made the leap to the top spec mini and a thunderbolt display and am very happy: accessible SD card slot, an actually present firewire socket, good enough performance (more would always be better!) and more discreet looks - no big aluminium panel underneath is an aesthetic bonus for me. And best of all, next time I have to upgrade I won't have to pay loads for a new screen I don't need, I can just upgrade the processor. Apple may as well skip this generation of iMac and do it again properly.

So according to you the iMac should be redesigned to be...a Mac mini.

It would seem doubly redundant to point out that there's already a Mac mini and that you bought one. But apparently it's not.

That's not really what I meant - for me the price/performance for the iMac, considering a new machine now and future upgrades later, isn't at the right point. The Mac mini + Thunderbolt is closer to what it should be. If Apple wants to sell all-in-one machines they should appreciate the upgrade price challenge and factor it in, rather than assuming everyone always wants to pay for stuff they already have. Otherwise they're open to the challenge that they're uncompetitive on price.

Kono, get over it. This is inevitable. In 5 more years, I expect base RAM to be either part of the CPU itself, or the northbridge. in fact, I see the CPU becoming a SoC about that fast as well. I 10 years, the onlything on the board other than a single big chip will be an optional radio module (because of international differences in bands this is better to keep seperate), and a set of bus lines to external ports.

Not likely, but not worth arguing here.

Quote:

the SSDs are not prorietart, the're mSATA, which IS a standard format. This is just an evolution in form factor, and is also inevitable. Apple is soldering on RAM becausr they HAVE TO in ultrabooks to meet the demands of the form factor (and EVERYONE ELSE IS TOO!), but they still leave RAM slots in pro notebooks and the 27" iMac (the low end 21" with either 8 or 16GB out of the box, won;t likely ever NEED an upgrade.

You haven't been keeping up. The recent retina MBP does not have RAM sockets, and the SSD is proprietary; it is neither SATA or mSATA. Nor can you add a hard disk, and large SSDs are still quite pricey. Also, the battery is glued in so thoroughly that iFixit didn't even remove it for fear of rupturing it. See the iFixit teardown.

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Some peoeple (lots of them) are demanding smaller, especially in notebooks, and sockets simply don;y work in those form factors, and it is NOT a form factor apple will ignore. That said, they CONTINUE to release other models that DO have the pugradibiltiy, and near identical if not LOWER prices, and they are far from alone in the industry on this issue.

Who is demanding these needlessly thin, non-upgradable, non-repairable high-end notebooks? (and iMacs?) The iPad or Air aside (though I still don't support the use of glue there either), I don't know anyone who wouldn't trade a little thickness for the increased flexibility, and not having a glued in battery. Removing the optical drive alone would have been a sufficient improvement in form factor.

Apple may retain some old models for a while, but those are not interesting, and won't last. Sure, the people who replace their $2500 MBPs every year will not be bothered, but I would be surprised if the are in the majority.